How do I figure out how much fabric I need to make a typical baby quilt? Help, please.

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I am a new grandma in the making. I want to make a simple baby quilt. I am not sure how to figure out how much fabric I need for it. I found the feature or focal fabric that will be a square and then I was thinking of doing a 4 patch block of the same size, but I never worked with out a pattern before. Can anyone help me? Also, I don't know what the size is of a typical baby quilt.

Welcome Christy - I cannot even come close to helping you on this. I am extraordinarily mathematically challenged. I use all the tools I can find to do calculations. I'm sure if you googled it, you could find the typical crib size or smaller. I just wanted to welcome you to the club. You will definitely get the answer here. Someone will come to your rescue.

Christy, your baby quilt can be whatever size you want. There is a standard size that you can find, I've never followed it. . If I have a block I like, I make enough to get to the size I want. A four patch alternated with a block of the same size is a great beginner quilt.

So, what size is the block you are starting with, the focus fabric?. Do you need help figuring out how to make the four patch work?

I don't use these as hard and fast rule, more a target to aim at and most likely won't hit. You can see that if you have 6 inch blocks, you will need 6x8 blocks for a total of 48 blocks. But if you have 12 inch blocks, three will fit nicely across, but you will either be too short or too tall for the size stated. This doesn't leave any room for sashes or borders or binding. So let us know what size blocks you want to start with and we'll go from there.

Christy, that's what I did for my DGGS's quilt. I made 6" squares of cute monkey fabric and 6" alternate squares. Here it is during construction. I bordered it with a narrow strip of blue and a wider strip of green. I backed it with flannel in those colors. Couldn't find a pic of it done.

One yard of fabric will give you between 28 to 35 - 6 inch squares depending on whether you wash it first and how long it is from selvidge to selvidge. If you are piecing half df the squares 3 yards should work just fine. 3 inch blocks are pretty small for a first time quilt, and as you can see, Marie's 6 inch blocks are pretty cute.

I rarely get the border fabric before I finish the quilt center. Be sure and send us pictures.

Congratulations on the new grand baby. I'm visiting our daughter and playing with our newest one right now. She stayed happy with me for over an hour before she made her kabuki mask face and went back to mama.